Where's The Love? Part 1: Celeb Chicks, Man Part 1

Some things in life, whether celebrity related or everyday man related, baffle my mind in their underrated-ness (that's tons of "ateds," huh). I've always been a champion for underdogs, so I've decided to do some blog entries where I'll be spotlighting my fave neglected things, by categories.

First up, my favorite Sleeper Female Celebs....obviously, in the looks department. There'll come a time when I do one on actresses based off talent, but these here are for physical first. Though, they're all actually talented in their own right, but that's not the matter at hand. These don't require many words to back them up, so I'll keep my written thoughts brief, to the point. So, without further delay.......hopefully this will wake some sleepers up about these gals' uber-sexy.


Mary Elizabeth Winstead



Quite possibly the most underrated "sexy actress" in the game right now. Maybe I love her so because she's largely done genre flicks: some shit good ones (that Black Christmas remake was fucking atrocious), the occasional one that surprises me in its quality (Final Destination 3), and then the downright awesome (Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof). Her next big project is Scott Pilgrim, based off a comic book series I'm dying to read and starring Superbad/Juno hot-boy Michael Cera and directed by the dope Edgar Wright. Should rule. And hopefully should wake motherfuckers up to the fine that is Mary El.
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Emmanuelle Chriqui



I'm pretty sure Ms. Chriqui and I first fell in (one-sided) love during Snow Day, an otherwise lame kiddie flick in which she played the generic "hot girl who our nerdy lead secretly loves" role. Eye candy, basically. But then she popped up in the pretty-cool Texas Chainsaw ripoff Wrong Turn (alongside another gal who'll appear later on this here list), wearing a skintight blue tank top, and acting a bit promiscous, and I was smitten. Instantly. Flawlessy-cute face....nice tan skin...airtight body. That blonde troll on Entourage is in way above his head with her....she needs a fella like me to relieve him of his duties.
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Eliza Dushku



The other actress who was in Wrong Turn with Chriqui....I first fell head over heels for Dushku during my Buffy The Vampire Slayer fanboy days (I admit it....the first three seasons rocked my world). I was all about Sarah Michelle Gellar until Dushku jumped on the scene as the meaner Faith, which instantly converted me. I gotta have Faith, I thought during every episode. Since Buffy, she's done a couple things, but sadly she's basically forgotten by men's magazines, casting agents, etc.....but thankfully, she's starring in a new TV show called Dollhouse, meaning I'll have a new show to watch this season. Hopefully it lasts for a few seasons, if not for only to see Dushku weekly. I've been patient....it's time to collect, now.
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Christina Ricci



No, this was not an excuse to post this new pic of Ricci wearing the shit out of that bikini. Although, it's worth mentioning again: Ricci is killing the beach-going game right there. But anyway....Wednesday Addams herself has always been high on my crush list. Perhaps its because she's a bit of an eccentric, a quality I find oh-so-endearing in a dame. She chooses really unique and unexpected roles, and always gives a strong performance. I personally liked Speed Racer, even though it was certainly way too long and confusing, but I still enjoyed. Largely because Ricci was so button-cute as Trixie. She's one that I actually don't mind being slept-on in the looks dept....it adds to her allure, really.
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Ashley Judd



True, she's much older than I am, but I didn't want this list to only include ladies around my age or so. Judd has always been the "older woman of my dreams" type.....gorgeous, elegant. She's not only underrated as a sex symbol, she's brutally slept-on as an actress.....so many great performances, but my personal favorite is last year's also-slept-on psychological weirdfest Bug, in which she gave an award-worthy showing. If only pseudo-horror flicks were award fodder, that is. But whatever. She's insanely beautiful in my book. Always has. Always will be.
--

And with Judd, this batch of sleepers has drawn to a close. I know I'm not alone here. All five of these ladies rock my world, and surely the worlds of many others who've seen the light. But on a bigger scale, I still must ask:

Where's the love????

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M.B. NOTE: Had to add one more. I'm currently skimming through the new Fall TV Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly and came across a blurb on that show Lipstick Jungle, which I don't watch, but one of its stars is....

Lindsay Price



Can't off the top of my head name what movies I know her from, but there's definitely a bunch. She's one of the sexy ladies who pops up in random projects I'm watching, and I'm always bitten by the lovebug, but never know her name or anything about her....but a couple issues ago, somebody at Esquire magazine had the genius idea to shoot her naked (no nips or anything seen, of course....it's not Playboy now) for their annual "My First Time...." feature package, and it was quite a shot to see.

Actually.....here, see for yourself (as seen in Esquire):



........exactly.

So, again.....where's the love?????

Life-Defining Moments -- Memory 2

At the time, grades Kindergarten through 8th didn't feel like the dark, connection-less labyrinth of emotions and self-questioning that I now realize they were. I was just a straight-A student, who wanted to do right by my parents and consistently brinh home 100% test papers, the kid with the happy and calm parents on every "parent/teacher" night. The kid that other parents wish could rub off on their own a bit. The kid who scored over 1,000 points in his four-year Interparochial League basketball career (stats don't lie, somewhere in my parents' basement lies the scorebooks to prove it).

I hardly hung out with "friends" outside of school, but that didn't make me sad or ashamed. Maybe once a week or so, I'd go over to one friend in particular's house to shoot hoops and watch ESPN highlights, chit-chat about our mutual hero Michael Jordan. See, back then I was a big jock-in-training. Movies and music were vices, as well, but sports was biggest bag. And without sports, I would've made zero friends. Nada. Could've ended up being a depression case, even. Who knows. But that's neither here nor there. I DID have sports, so all was well.

Well, well enough. You see, I was living a sort-of secret life for the first half of my time at St. Catharine's elementary school, in Glen Rock, Jerz. The school was as preppy as any grade school could ever be. Fucking kids actually had Billy Joel fan clubs, or Nirvana fan clubs (okay, a Nirvana fan club isn't bad at all....but Billy Joel? Keep in mind, these kids were no older than 12. I bet their parents would even laugh at the idea of a Billy Joel fan club). There was another group who they all loved at the time, but the group name escapes me. Their album was called POCKET FULL OF KRYPTONITE, though, I do remember that much. Maybe somebody out there can recall....I could always just do a simple Google search right now, but fuck it. Too lazy.

The point of all this being....I was scared to admit to my "friends" that I was a huge, mega fountain of hip-hop love and knowledge at the time. I'd go home, and while riding the bus, I'd have Wu-Tang's 36 CHAMBERS, or Gang Starr's HARD TO EARN in my cassette player. I'd go home and call the local bookstore every first Tuesday of the month, hoping that a new issue of The Source had dropped, and then would demand that my parents drive me there to scoop it up. Every time a new Source dropped, was like Christmas for your boy. I was the kid who called Coconuts every day for a week straight obsessively, asking if Group Home's LIVIN' PROOF album was in stock yet. (My timeline may be off, in terms of what grade I was in when these things happened, but this was my mindstate back then regardless, so work with me here).

But I battled with the fearful notion of revealing my "hip hop jones" to these kids on a daily basis. Then one day, in my 5th grade term, I grew a pair of balls and did the unthinkable: I walked the halls of St. Catharine's, where old bitchy nuns roamed and close-minded youth walked, in a Public Enemy tour jacket. All black; giant PE symbol on the back (the red bulls-eye with the guy wearing a hat and crossing his arms standing within the scope). Unsurprisingly, many a head turned, many a jaw dropped. Matt Barone, the quiet straight-A student who seemed to be sweeter than sugar was wearing a jacket that had a semi-automatic weapon's bulls-eye blasted on the back. (sidenote: my uncle is the man....he hooked that jacket up for me, knowing I loved PE much....he had some industry connects at the time).

Shockingly, however, nobody seemed to really care. A couple teachers and nuns questioned it, but I guess my reputation was in such positive standing that a meaningless coat could do little to crumble what I'd indirectly built for years prior. And shortly after that, I started listening to my cassette player during lunch break, rather than waiting 'til I was off-campus on the bus. And one day, my teacher asked me what I was listening to, which would've been whatever if it were any other day. This time, I had Onyx's BACDAFUCUP tape playing, stopped on the track "Black Vagina Finda." Imagine if I'd let my teacher--a 50-something year old White broad--listen to Sticky Fingaz dictate his affinity for Black girls' snatches. Heart attack caused, much? But I simply said, "Oh, a rap group called Onyx," and then switched the subject to whatever test we had on the horizon. Well-played by yours truly, I must say.

While these events didn't cause the initial uproars I had anticipated, they gradually made my grammar school experience one of isolation and discomfort. My peers slowly distanced themselves from me, in subtle ways, but looking back on it, I should've noticed the rifts tenfold then. Especially when my school comibined with some schools from Paterson, merging into an "Interparochial" establishment. Before you knew it, I was connecting with the kids from Paterson (who, yes, happened to be Black) more so than any of the "friends" I'd had for the years before. I was able to more openly address my love for rap, to kids who shared the same interests and wouldn't look at me like a weirdo or a wannabe.

Still, though, those awkward years were the first times I noticed that, at heart, I'm an extreme introvert. And it all stems back to the feeling that my interests could be looked down upon as a bit strange. Grounds for being outcasted. Of course, these days his has died down, and I wear my geek flags proudly. But growing up, my eccentricities were the cause of much grief, much insecurity, and, honestly, much tears in the privacy of my bedroom. All will be told here in the future. This is just the jumpoff point.

El fin. For now.

Martyrs Watch -- I Hate Not Living In France At The Moment

Fuck me.

Some excerpts from yet another glowing review of my current Holy Grail of cinema, Martyrs.....from the horror titans of Dread Central:


"Although Martyrs will undoubtedly be compared to Inside in terms of its intensity, the film is a bastard unto itself that manages to surpass its comparisons on all levels. Director Laugier has presented an experience that is both cinematically stunning, yet emotionally devastating, and with all the subtleties of a barbed wire enema."
.....
.....
"While we’ve recently run through the torture gamut from Eli Roth’s pedestrian Hostel series to Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, it would be completely wrong to compare Martyrs to films of this ilk. The majority of these torture flicks were flawed in their intent, as they irresponsibly allowed the viewer to harmlessly act as a voyeur without having to bear any actual feeling or empathy towards the victims on screen. Pascal Laugier has created a movie that will elicit an authentic response in many and will present itself as a true emotional ordeal. While the latter movies focus on exploitation, it is Laugier’s intention to have the audience honestly share in communion with his film, step-by-step in the pain, hope, and eventual liberty of the victims onscreen. Even the most jaded hardcore genre fan will fail in walking away from this flick unaffected."
.....
.....
"While many will point at films such as Salo: 120 of Sodom and Aftermath as points of reference in comparison to Martyrs, the movie will stand alone for many years to come in terms of its intense emotional honesty ... and infamy. This is a film of absolutes. For something of this caliber there will be no varying degrees of opinion. You will either despise what you've experienced or support Pascal Laugier in creating a masterpiece that transcends the genre and leaves the viewer drained and breathless."



So yeah, this review is acting like a kerosene on an already-burning bonfire.

Fuck me.

Netflix Fix #3 -- Peeping Tom

Next up on my Netflix junkie watch is a controversial and oft-overlooked British psychological thriller called Peeping Tom. Made back in 1960, it's one of those special films that shocked and angered so many people upon its initial release, that it subsequently became taboo and was virtually swept under cinema's rug, in hopes that it'd be forgotten like a bad virus. Problem was, though, that it's critically looked at with praise, and greats such as Martin Scorcese have stated their love of it and how influential it was in their careers. Peeping Tom caused such a negative fuss, however, that it left an permanent stain on director Michael Powell's up-and-coming reputation, one that hindered his career as a result. Poor chap.

All of that into consideration, it was clearly a flick I needed to see for myself, and up until the 'Flix (yeah, that's how I'm going to abbreviate it....wanna fight about it?), the only I would've seen it was by dropping a cool 20-spot to buy the DVD, fortunately my better instincts prevented me to do so. Having just watched it, I can't say that I'd ever want to own it. It wasn't bad by any means, and I can totally understand why it was such a groundbreaking experience back in 1960. It's just that, Peeping Tom is a film that hasn't aged very well, at least to me. There's very little tension, and in the wake of endlessly-jarring films since 1960, the effect it must've had on audiences back then is not felt in the slightest today.

I can only imagine how sick and disturbing it must have been for British audiences in that debut year. The stuff that goes on and the underlying themes explored are far from the mature humor of most early British cinema. This is pretty bleak and demented stuff.

Marc is a reclusive, tormented wannabe filmmaker. No matter what time of day or where he is, he always carries his trusty camera, complete with a tripod of stand-up legs. This sick fuck isn't videotaping nature for harmless hobby, though; he uses this camera to lull piece-of-ass women into false sense of curiousity, before removing the bottom of the center leg to reveal a blade that he jams into the gal's throat, all while filming for his own twisted enjoyment. Yeah, like I said, sick shit, right? Of course, being made in 1960, there's no blood seen at all, and the kills are mostly implied through the facial expressions of the victims, but what's suggested is pretty daring.



The opening scene is perhaps the film's most effective. Like the jumpoff sequence in the original Halloween, its all seen in first-person, this time through Marc's camera lens as he takes a prostitute up to a private room in the middle of the night, where he proceeds to poke a hole clear through her neck (wonder how much hookers charge for that in London?). Maybe it's because I'm fucking weird, but I always find first-person kills to be especially effective. It's the feeling of actually committing it, perhaps, or even the interaction between you and the victim as you're watching it on screen. In Halloween, it was seen through a Halloween mask, and turned out to be an 8-or-so year old Michael Myers killing his slutty older sister. For sake of debate, the way John Carpenter executes it in Halloween is a bit more unsettling than how director Michael Powell handles it here in Peeping Tom. But Powell still gets major points for creativity, considering his films was made nearly 20 years before Carpenter's.

Sounds like I'm all about Peeping Tom up 'til this point, huh? Well, here comes the hate. First off, there's not one likeable character in the entire film, and that's never a good thing. The main guy/villain, Marc, is so socially awkward that you want to feel sympathy for the sick fuck, but every time he opens his mouth, you're irritated by how much of a whiny fruitcup he is. "Just shut the fuck up already, and stop your bitching you pussy!" That's what I was thinking the whole time.

Or, better yet, I was thinking, "Just fucking kill somebody already!" There's only three deaths in the entire movie, one being SPOILER ALERT Marc himself, in a delusional bit of suicide at the end. Not to sound all morbid, but a higher body count would've worked wonders here. Pretty much everybody who steps foot on screen deserved to die, just off sheer annoyance factors alone. There's the naive, far-too-innocent redhead neighbor, Helen, who flirts endlessly with Marc, not realizing that he's madder than a French hair. The scenes where they awkwardly flirt are about as touching and romantic as a vasectomy. You're supposed to feel for her, how she's falling for a man who isn't responsive, and how she's so blind to the fact that her dream-lover is in fact a sexually-depraved deviant with homicidal festishes. Don't you hate when that happens, ladies?

And then, the most god-awful character of all, some Paris Hilton-in-the-face-looking model who never shuts the fuck up and complains and deserves a beatdown by another girl (I don't condone men hitting women, of course), is killed entirely off screen. Not even off screen, actually....the scene completely fades to black right as Marc stands over her, camera-impaler in hand. Fuck you, Michael Powell!! The least you could've done was show that annoying twat get offed. I was highly peeved, as you can tell.

In hindsight, there is one character who isn't entirely deplorable. Marc works as a cameraman on a movie production, one which has a mean and insulting director. He has little screen time, but does manage to fire off one gem of a line: after the female star discovers her stand-in's corpse in a toy chest during a scene, she lets out a yelp and falls to the floor. The director, not knowing what she saw, yells, "That silly bitch! She fainted in the wrong scene!" I LOLed there, for sure.

In the end, Peeping Tom is definitely a groundbreaker, and an important film. Some of the camera techniques are pretty slick, and you can certainly see how it could've been influential on a number of filmmakers (Stanley Kubrick, perhaps, in a couple moments...aforementioned John Carpenter in others). And the idea that Marc gets off on the fear he sees in his victim's faces is pretty clever, in a sick way. And, the way he offs himself is rather effective.



I just wish I could've seen it back in the '60s, when it's polarizing and stunning effects would have definitely been felt by yours truly. Having seen some of the most grotesque and shocking films ever made, such relatively-tame stuff as the images in Peeping Tom just can't chill me. They can impress me, as most do. Just can't make me shiver. Or even flinch. Damn shame.

But for film buffs and genre heads, Peeping Tom is one you should certainly try and peep at some point.

Life-Defining Moments....Memory 1

Lately, I've been putting the past 26 years and 9 months of my life under a personal microscope, trying to learn more about myself. I figure, nobody can teach me who I am, it's all on me. And lord knows there's tons of layers left on M.B. to unravel. Just this past year I found myself questioning a few things about yours truly that I had always taken to be constants, not momentaries. This'll be one hell of a journey, I know, but for now, I've decided to single out specific moments in my life, points in time when a major shift in my existence kicked into gear.

These won't be in any sort of chronological order, they'll just be hitting me randomly and I'll jot them down as they come to mind. This blog acts as a journal of sorts for me...a place where I can put down thoughts and feelings and excitements that would otherwise have no home. And, in the process, those who give a shit can learn a bit more about M.B., if they so choose.

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One memory that has always rang bells in my mind dates back to 4th grade, when I was a quiet, timid, insecure, straight-A student at St. Catharine's Interparochial School in preppy-ass Glen Rock, New Jersey. Tight-panted uniforms that pulled up past the ankles while seated, full-on flood pants. Sweater vests, button up shirts and ties of the clip-on variety.

I rolled with a pack of kids really nothing like me, save for an interest in sports and a strong affinity for Michael Jordan. If not for sports, particularly basketball at that time, I'd have most likely ended up a hermit who later became a total bookworm in his later educational days and went on to make a shitload more money than I do now. But I'd be miserable at heart, so what I make now is better than that regardless. But anyway....

We had this nasty, bitch of a librarian named Mrs. Mueller, a real witch who seemed to thrive on torturing young kids with boring literature and zero kindness. Well, actually, she was somewhat kind to me, being that I was all grade-As and all obedience. The rest of the boys in my class were true sons-of-bitches, the type of pains who'd do shit such as unraveling paper clips and throwing around the library as Mrs. Mueller would read us stories such as The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

On one particular day in library class, my fellow male classmates must have littered the carpet with over 30 straightened paper clips, and Mueller had a fucking cown. Fuck that, she had an entire cattle. Rather than pulling out a machete and slicing every boy's head off, then spiking each on top of stacked paper clips as some sort of faux Pagan ritual, she made all of us (yes, me too, being that I'm of a the boy gender, she didn't want to exclude me from the shame, now, even though I didn't touch one fucking paper clip) sit in the back of the library while the chicks in my class kept on nodding off to that Narnia bullshit. We weren't told to simply sit in silence, however; no, we had a writing assignment: scribe a narrative essay, with only the working title of 'A Day In the Life of a Paper Clip' as our starting point. From there, we had creative control over the plot, conflict, characters, etc.

Me being a lover of fantasy and an avid watcher of film, even back at that ripe age (about 10, 11, or so, I guess), I saw this as a prime opportunity to let the imagination run amok. So when the 15-minute time period was up, Mrs. Mueller decided to further the public humiliation and read each of our essays aloud to the entire class. Masochist old hag that she was.

The first couple were, at the most, 30 words long. "I am a paper clip. I was made in a paper clip factory. I held papers together in Saint Catharine's. The end." Some shit like that, real pathetic attempts at storytelling. After about six or seven awful stabs at this from my peers, it came to read mine aloud.

"A Day in the Life of a Paper Clip, by Matthew Barone," began Mrs. Mueller. Of course, I was the only goodie-goodie who actually titled my piece as such. Then, Mueller's face dropped a bit, as she realized that I had written three pages', front side and back side of each, worth of tale. I'd named the protagonist paper clip (Billy, I believe), thought up a whole central conflict (he was separated from his paper clips parents at the factory on one sad, fateful day, causing parallel plotlines of his efforts of reuniting with his 'rents and the 'rents' episodes of depression and despair).

There was adventure (Billy mad dash through the library as a vacuum cleaner sucked everything in its path up, nearly inhaling our brave Billy Boy on at least four occasions); suspense (Billy is picked up by one bastard student, who slowly begins unraveling him as Billy squeals in agony, only to be saved as the librarian reprimands the student/assailant); and even hints of romance (Billy develops a crush on a female paper clip, one colored pink, though I forget her name at the moment).

Keep in mind, I was in 4th grade.

By story's end, Mrs. Mueller literally walked over to me and shook my hand, and called in our homeroom teacher to share the tale of Matthew Barone's amazing paper clip epic. Perhaps she was most intrigued by the fact that my story had a dark, unhappy ending (just as Billy's parents are taken out of the box-of-clips in the library, they see poor Billy being unraveled as his one end extends to them in some sort of reach-out for help), and me being a wee lad, she couldn't imagine such tragedy being executed. Or maybe she was just creeped out by that point.

But looking back on that day, I truly feel like that was the genesis of my wanting to become a storyteller. A writer. The response "A Day in the Life of a Paper Clip" was met with from those faculty members and a select few peers was a bit surprising, and it felt damn good. After that, I went on to write several more stories in my spare time, at home in notepads and bound journal-meant books. Those will all be written about here in the near future.

So from now on, when you routinely use a paper clip to hold some pages together, take a second to stop and look at it, and listen closely. It could very well be just like poor Billy, crying for compassion and freedom.

Remote Control.....You Can Finally Take A Breather

Holy shit......

....how come nobody had alerted me about this glorious channel before? If not for my brother, I'd have never known that there's actually an entire television network dedicated to playing horror movies all day, every day.

Monsters HD is the coolest channel to ever grace an idiot box. Hands down. I mean, c'mon....last night, I saw Day of the Dead for the first time ever on a TV network (seen it over like three dozen times on DVD, but never have been able to just click on to it, 'til now). Right now, I'm checking out Pumpkinhead for the first time ever (a movie I've heard tons about but haven't seen, 'til now).

Old black-and-white flicks, popular and obscure; cheesy '70s and '80s gems; new-wave offerings. This ish has them all....thank god my roommate's father hooked our living room up with the kick-ass flat screen, HD tube. Now I just gotta hope that my roommate comes home late every night from here on out, because he doesn't fuck with my kinda cinema, and Monsters HD isn't available on my humble mini-TV in the bedroom.

I'm off, now, to continue watching Pumpkinhead. No clue why the monster is called that...certainly doesn't look like no jack-o-lantern. But hopefully I'll know by film's end. Or, maybe not. Maybe it'll be one of those bizarre little gems that never even tries to make a shred of sense. It was directed by the late great effects king Stan Winston, his lone directorial effort if I'm not mistaken. That alone makes it one I have to watch.

Monsters HD, bitches!

Good Ol' Trailer Trash

There's a really wordy, in-depth, emotion-filled post concerning the impact that last year's Rob Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature masterpiece Grindhouse had on my life in this blog's future, but for now, I just couldn't resist posting two totally-neglected components of its theatrical version.

If you've been catching either Planet Terror or Death Proof on Starz , you're fucking up. This was the quintessential "theater going experience" movie, hugely because of the fake trailers that played in between the two flicks. One was funny and did a nice job opening the bill (Machete) one (Rob Zombie's Werewolf Women of the S.S.) was effective yet totally bodied by the other superior trailers....

....and then the other two were pure genius. First is Don't, directed by Edgar Wright, who rocked the shit with both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Don't is so dope because of how well it captures the gothic-creepy-confusion of old British horror flicks, like the Hammer studio's arsenal as examples. A whole bunch of creepy and bloody (both in the gore sense and in the "what the bloody hell" sense) stuff happened, very little of it made any sense and/or worked into the central plot, but it was all great fun to watch. Just like this faux trailer, which I love to piece:



Second is Thanksgiving, directed by Eli Roth, the really arrogant dude behind the Hostel films. I'm no Roth hater, but I do think dude started feeling himself way too much, and being that Hostel 2 was a bit of a dud, hopefully he'll return sooner than later with something as insanely good as Cabin Fever. But this, here, is amazing, especially in how it feels like an actual flick that would've been considered a "video nasty" back in the '80s. Extra cool points go to Roth for sliding in the soggy organs used in Creepshow. Nice touch:



"White meat. Dark meat. All will be oarved." Love that shit....."It's blood. [Other guy] Son of a bitch!" Also love that shit.

Seeing Grindhouse on opening day will forever remain a life-altering experience in my life. And one day, I'll fully explain why. It'll be an extra-long blog, I'll tell ya that much.

Martyrs Watch 2008, The Genesis Post

[Like I've done with Quarantine, I'm kicking off a series of posts centered around the upcoming French horror ish Martyrs, another film, like Quarantine, I'm dying to watch....and another that I've written about here extensively already....so I figure, why not dedicate a special series to it now? Here goes...]

Another day, another Martyrs review read without my having seen it yet....fuck me. Twas another reaction from the Toronto International Film Festival, and yet again talked the flick up as some sort of "film festival classic."

Now it's at the point of pissing me off to no end....the stage of "excitement and anticipation" has subsided. Been reading about this movie for like four, five months now. Just want to see the damn thing already. If all of these viewers are saying that its BETTER than Inside, after simultaneously praising Inside, we most certainly should have a winner on our hands.

I'm thinking of running up into the Weinstein Company's offices and demanding that they show me a print pronto, or else I'll stop promoting the film on a modest blog that about 17 people regularly read. One being my cousin, who by blood is obligated to do so anyway. That should make the Weinsteins ante up, no?

Besides, I'll eventually run out of movie images to post in these Martyrs entries. Even though they've all been kick-ass so far. And the two actresses in the film are beyond gorgeous, and from what I've gathered, plot-wise, they're put through the ringer and subjected to shit that'll make people leave the cinema and possibly vomit, or at least sob in compassionate sadness. Jesus, I need this movie in my life.

How 'bout one more pic, then, for good measure? The two hotties....a double-barred shooter =

Dirty Sexy Honey(s)

The Album To Beat.....

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you....the best rap album of 2008, thus far, and honestly, I'll be surprised-not if it remains so throughout the remainder of this 12-month-spanner.....


Elzhi - The Preface




16 songs, all great....amazing lyrics, inventive concepts, flawless beats from Black Milk....it's like how they used to make them, and it's a bit of hip hop heaven. Search for it, rap dudes and dudettes, more than worth it. I swear.

'Tis all.

Christian Bale = Kermit the Frog???

Came across this on the funny-as-shit Dlisted.com

Some bored yet utterly genius chap spent a considerable amount of time compiling pictures of both The Dark Knight himself, Christian Bale, and my man and yours, Kermit the Frog, that are mirror images of each other, and holy shit is it great.

The things nerds online with too much time on their hands are capable of, simply astonishing....click the link below, it's pretty amazing ish:


http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/27350111.html#cutid1

A sampling, to wet your whistles....











***By the way.....people brag about doing "30 posts in 30 days" and all, but I just noticed that this is my 51st post in 30 days....beat that, blogging world.

Playlist of Shame

Sometimes I wonder why I'm being so open with this blog, saying things that normally I'd be ashamed to admit. But I guess that was the point all along, for me to have a place where it'd be easy for me to totally real, and a place for those who care to see how I am the 94% of my life in which they don't see or talk to me.

This next post is really a shameful one.....songs that I'm a bit ashamed to be loving the hell out of these days. Yes, most are chick records, but I can't help it. They all knock.

--Ne-Yo "Miss Independent"
--Usher "Traffic"
--Katy Perry "Hot & Cold"
--New Kids on the Block w/ Ne-Yo "Single"
--Mario "Stuttering"
--Gym Class Heroes w/ The Dream "Cookie Jar"
--Lloyd "Sex Education"
--The Dream "Should've Been You"
--The Dream "She Needs My Love"

Am I becoming a R&B/pop head now? It'd make sense, considering how shitty rap is. But god I hope not. The day a new Premier beat doesn't make me giddy will be a sad one indeed.

But c'mon Matt.....Katy Perry?! There's something afoul going down in the state of Barone....

Politics Unusual.....late breaking news!

Stop the presses.....I just read that Governor Palin was at one time a beauty pageant contestant!? Won second place in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant, as Miss Wasilla. She was, also, voted Miss Congeniality.

This resonates with so much because, honestly, when I saw her pics earlier, my initial reaction was strangely, "Damn, she's kinda sexy for an older Republican dame." I swear....it weired me out, and I didn't know if I should even admit it in my last post, but now that its proven she has a neauty queen past, I feel more than validated. She's hot! I'd do Sarah Palin, it's the truth....

Past



Present



Be honest....you know you would, too.

Sucks for Hillary Clinton....something tells me that if Palin is really legit and performs well, Clinto could slowly fade away...at least, in public feminine favor.

Politics Unusual

One of my flaws I've always been open to admitting is my lack of political awareness. I know enough to get by, but in terms of engaging in intellectual debates over CNN and MSNBC fodder, I'd catch an L every time, unless I was debating against my niece. Or even nephew, for that matter. But my dad's side of the family is so passionately and outspokenly Democrat, that I've naturally been one myself, and proud of it. Liberal is me, and everything the party stands for and against coincides with my personal beliefs, so it fits like a glove.

And of course, that being said, I'm all about Obama this year. He has my vote locked, no question, and this Joe Biden fella impressed the hell out of me with that speech the other night at the Democratic National Convention.

But today, with McCain's announcement of his Vice President running mate, an Alaskan Governor named Sarah Palin, I feel like, for once, John McCain has impressed the shit out of yours truly. This is some slick, brilliant, art of war tactic shit right here, at least as far as I can register. Palin was a total surprise, nobody pegged her as his inevitable selection. I've heard Mitt Romney's name mentioned most, but not Palin. But after investigating her stats, it makes so much sense, it's damn near genius.

She's only three years older than Obama = the whole "McCain is a geezer, Obama is the young guy brining change" argument has just been countered by the Republicans. I wonder if the age issue will be such a lightning rod for us Dems anymore? It's no mystery that the VP is the one who actually makes the most calls, not the President. The Pres is largely the one in front of the scenes; behind, the VP makes moves. See Don Cheney and pupper Dubya.

Palin is, obviosuly, a she, meaning many of the voters who rallied behind Hillary Rodham Clinton because of her "strong female" angle could very well switch to the McCain side now that his running mate is another "strong female." Meaning, tons of those Hillary supporters who have been on the fence about Obama could very well turn their sights of backing on Palin. Girl power, as they say.

She's a history maker, and this election has been all about that. Palin has become the first woman to ever be named to a Republican ticket. Now if that's not shaking the system, as Obama and his peeps have said is a major must, I don't know what is.

It's almost like McCain's camp sat around anticipating Obama's VP choice. Once Biden was named, somebody exclaimed: "Damn, imagine if we had a younger woman on our ticket. Chess moves, motherfucker!" And then another white geezer was like, "Hey, how about that broad from Alaska?"....of course, I'm sure she was in the running secretly for much longer, but still. Makes sense, kinda, right?

Now, I'm not totally sold on the fact that Obama will win come November. I never was, frankly, but now I'm a bit less than before. I guess I'll just have to pay a closer eye to this whole race now, see if Palin shows some cracks that could turn swaying voters off to her. Time will tell.

What think everybody else? Is this a great strategic move by Repubs? A blow to Dems? Or nothing of either such?

How Cool Is This??

Take my all-time favorite movie (the original Night of the Living Dead), give it some old animated-making-over, condense to like five and a half minutes, and what do you get?

This kick-ass piece of Youtube fun.

Netflix Fix #2 -- Dog Soldiers

Decided to toss Dog Soldiers into the old DVD machine last night before my slumber time. Wasn't fully tired, and figured that an "action-packed werewolf thrill ride" would surely keep me awake. I read that description in some review, can't recall which precise one.

First a bit of background into my affinity for werewolves. The first classic movie monster that earned a sweet spot close to my heart was Lon Chaney Jr.'s The Wolfman. Made back in 1941, his hungry-beast-trapped-within-a-man's-tortured-soul always registered with me more than Boris Karloff's Frankenstein or Bela Lugosi's Dracula, or even Karloff's Mummy. The Wolfman is a damn fine piece of film, one I can still watch with enjoyment to this day, and I first watched it when I was like nine or ten years of age. The beast resides within a kind-hearted fella, a guy who wants nothing more than to live a normal life, but has been cursed with wolf-ishness after being bitten by one. He didn't ask for it, and Chaney Jr. played the character with such vulnerability and compassion. Plus, the wolf attack scenes were pretty raw for '41's standards, with a blonde cutie running through the woods as Wolfy was on the prowl. And the creature makeup always impressed me.

So you can imagine my excitement with next year's modern-day telling of The Wolfman, if not only for the fucking-brilliant casting of Benicio Del Toro in the Chaney Jr. role. I mean, Del Toro looks like a wolf on any given day, and he's a great thespian, so odds are certainly in the movie's favor. And I managed to catch that camera phone version of the footage shown at Comic Con that four minutes it was available online, and it kicked uber ass.

So yeah, werewolves have always held a strong spot in my lifeline. Meaning, when I discovered that Neil Marshall, the writing/directing mind behind one of my fave horror joints in the last five or so years, The Descent, made his debut with a werewolf-filled action horror movie, I was ecstatic. It's been a long ass time since I've seen werewolves done some justice. I'm still wiping the shit-stain of 2004's fecal Van Helsing off of my eyes. Man, that's literally one of the worst movies ever made. Frankenstein as a crying, pussy bitch? Blasphemy! At least Kate Beckinsale looked piping-hot in it.

But, alas.....Dog Soldiers.



Made in 2002. It's about a ragtag British army outfit from sent into the woods of Scotland on a "routine training exercise," one that of course goes to complete wolf shit. A tenacious and starving pack of at-least-7-foot-tall werewolves lets loose on the troop, picking a few soldiers off before the fatigue-laden fellas are rescued by a mysterious chick who brings them back to af friend's empty farmhouse. Once there, the hairy-sons-of-bitches wage war on the soldiers, smashing through windows, breaking down doors, feeding on dumbass soldiers who step foot outside. All that good stuff.

But I have to be honest....I didn't really like this one. I totally wanted to love it, and I've read pretty much nothing but praise from my trusty horror sites (really, in terms of horror movies, don't read mainstream reviews. Trust the critics on horror sites, because they're the real "fans.") But it mostly bored me. Sure, the wolves, or "lycanthropes" as science refers to them, are very kick-ass, and many of the attack setpieces are good bloody fun. It's just that, I couldn't give two shits about any of the soldiers. They're all annoying, disposable, poorly-constructed. Horror characters can be little more than soon-dead cattle, of course, but what I loved so much about Marshall's insanely-superior The Descent is how he fully developed the female protagonists so well. So when they started dying, you actually felt a bit of sympathy and remorse. In Dog Soldiers, you're rooting for the wolves. Maybe that's the intention? I don't know.



It opens up with one of those pointless, not effective scenes where anonymous characters are killed by an unseen threat, which of course turns out to be our wolves. So right off the bat, I wasn't impressed. And then it goes into about 20 or so minutes of idle banter between the soldiers, and it's pretty lame stuff. I'm sitting there thinking, "If the fucking wolves don't show up, fangs out, in about five minutes, I'm going to sleep." But fortunately, a mangled cow flies into their campsite, disrupting the chit-chat, and then it's on. But as the movie progressed, I found myself more and more disinterested. If the creatures had been on screen the entire time, just fucking shit up, I'd have been a happy camper. But that's not the case. You have mostly our soldiers discussing survival tactics, which sucks when you want them to die, not endure. And backing these scenes is a sweeping score, one that'd be better suited for a medieval times adventure, or a swashbuckling pirate show....not blood-soaked horror.



On a positive note: there's a cute white-and-black Lab dog in the film, and you know how much I love pooches. Always bring a smile to my grill. Our lead soldier, "Cooper," who looks like Dolph Lundgren minus steroid usage, finds the mutt inside the farmhouse, a scene that I welcomed. And much to my pleasure, the dog survives! Within the first ten minutes, a dog is shot in the head at point blank range, which I was quite pissed about. So imagine my satisfaction when the farmhouse canine makes it out alive, even saving the day during the last attack sequence. Very much like The Hills Have Eyes dog. Well done, canine community.

In all, I'm glad I finally got to see Dog Soldiers, but wish it grabbed me more. I can't say I'd suggest anybody else watch it, unless you're in the mood for some werewolf-caused carnage and tongue-in-cheek humor. The Descent was deliciously dark and bleak; Dog Soldiers is violent yet light-hearted. I prefer the former, because I'm twisted like that.

**As an added bonus, here's a great Wu-Tang song off their last unfairly-hated-on album, 8 Diagrams.....track is called "Wolves" (connection explained):

Netfllix Fix #1 -- Calvaire

Talk about being late to the party....I finally joined Netflix a few days ago. Yes, me, the dude for whom Netflix was designed to please in the first place. The reasons for my tardiness: laziness, uncertainty, foolish impulse to buy DVDs rather than rent them. But I've arrived, bitches, so let the games begin. It's only been like two days, but my queue has like 50 flicks on hold already. I don't fuck around.

The first flick I've seen courtesy of the 'Flix is a Belgian chill-show from 2006 called Calvaire, which translates to "The Ordeal." I'd read about this flick a bunch o' times on various horror sites, and its filmmaker, Fabrice Du Welz, is the man behind a new jawn I'm dying to see, which I wrote about a couple days ago, called Vinyan. But I could never find Calvaire in Blockbuster, and I only happened across it once in a store, Virgin Mega I believe, but shit was like 28 beans and I couldn't justify such an unsure purchase. But thankfully, Netflix has every damn film ever made, so naturally I made Calvaire my first choice.



Just finished watching it....what the fuck was that? Like, seriously. I'm equal parts mesmerized, angered, confused, intrigued. Compelled to re-watch it right away. I'm no slouch in terms of loving darkly esoteric cinema, but this ish was off the charts bizarre. In good way, though, I'm pretty sure I feel.

Plot wise: a struggling, sort-of-shitty traveling performer/singer is en route to a gig deep in Belgium, when his piece-o-shee van breaks down in the boonies. First, some crazy fella scares the shit out of our main guy, Marc Stevens (I read somewhere that this name is a homage to some old school porn star. Weird), while looking for "Bella," his lost dog. Crazy Guy leads him to a rundown inn, where Marc sleeps the night off in hopes of getting his van fixed in the AM. He wakes up to the inn owner, Bartel (another name reference, this time to some cult filmmaker I need to research a bit), towing his van to the inn. As things progress, Bartel reveals how his one true love, Gloria, left him years ago, and he starts to show signs of lunacy. After Marc sings to Bartel at the old man's request, the shit basically hits the fan. Bartel believes that Marc is really Gloria, beats him down, tortures him, dresses him in Gloria's clothes, shaves his head half-assed-like. Marc sees some dirty villagers fucking a pig. The dirty villagers crash Bartel and Crazy Guy's party and rape Marc. Marc escapes. Villagers chase after him.

WTF!



Tons of other "huh?" moments ensue, such as Bella being revealed as a baby cow. Marc is partly crucifed in a barn. Some old chick makes a gross pass at Marc. Calvaire is strangely perverse, totally demented, and somehow beautiful to watch. The way Du Welz shoots the thing is something to really see. Tons of repeated imagery throughout and interesting camera movements and angles. Especially this one wild scene that mirrors the 'dinner scene' in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with Du Welz spinning the camera around the table as it gradually zooms in on the eyeballs of the deliriously-laughing guys-in-seats.

Also worth noting is the sparse use of music. There may be no music at all, actually, until the montage closing sequence, and even then it's just faintly-heard strings. The soundtrack here is provided by natural sounds: the crackling of a fireplace, the rustling of wind. Really adds to the uneasy tension that is felt even when nothing is happening.



Would I recommend Calvaire? I'm not entirely sure just yet. I'm really glad I watched it; it's been a long ass time since I've seen a movie that truly bewildered me in a way where I couldn't take my eyes off the screen even though internally I knew nothing was making any sense.

It's not a good movie, necessarily. Just one that's so unique and inventive in its borrowing of older genre offerings that it feels like a breath of fresh air, even though it's really a startling cough of hit-or-miss tribute. Think the aforementioned Chainsaw Massacre getting it on in a three-way with Deliverance and Dustin Hoffman's great villagers-gone-wild gem Straw Dogs, as overseen by David Lynch while staring at a Salvador Dali painting. It doesn't work fully, but it's a missed opportunity that you're oddly glad didn't connect on all cylinders. Its strangeness is its biggest charm. Sometimes, broken objects are better than operational ones.

The arthouse feel throughout Calvaire is striking, but you soon realize you're within an arthouse located firmly on the campus of a sexually-fueled insane asylum. And it's not necessarily a hetero asylum.

Netflix, you don't even know the monster you've created here.....up next, Neil Marshall's debut, the werewolf actioner Dog Soldiers. Should be a hoot.

A True Work Of Mart

Now this is how I like to hear my hip-hop....why can't DJ Premier just produce every single rap song ever recorded from here on out. A lad can dream, can't he?

Ill Bill "Society Is Brainwashed" (produced by Ill Bill)

Top That!

From the '80s "classic" (I keed, I keed) TEEN WITCH, starring one of my earliest crushes, redhead Robyn Lively (80s pop culture heads, you feel me, I'm sure)....a girl I was dating a couple years back put me on to this, and I was in dumbfounded awe at first sight, which quickly turned into pure hatred and contempt.

But now, I just laugh my ass off at it. How the culture of hip hop survived this, I'll never truly know. Just goes to show how resilient rap music really is. And yes, this was actually in the movie; it's not doctored up at all. Enjoy, or cringe.......

Women In Peril

[Yes, that third person in is indeed a woman. Hard to believe, right? For about the first 20 pages or so, I kept making sure mentally that she was in fact a 'she' and not a 'he.' My guess is that she bats for the other team, if you know what I mean, but it's never outright stated. Just hinted at in subtle fashion toward the end. But anyway, I digress... ]

Just finished a new comic book. Not sure if this one's even considered a graphic novel, since it came out as one continuous narrative, to the best of my knowledge. Four Women, by a highly-respected fella named Sam Kieth. It's one I'd been put on to, shit, about a year ago now maybe, but finding it in stores and/or online has been tougher than locating Cam'ron in Harlem nowadays. I was recommended it by a friend who swore that its plot and storytelling style were both perfectly up my alley, so naturally I was quite intrigued. Finally tracking it down on the wonderful haven of discount shopping half.com a couple weeks ago, the time had ultimately come for me to experience it for myself.

Quite happy that I did so, now. A swift, entertaining, intense, harrowing and very quick read, filled with twists and character-arch shifts and all that good stuff. It centers on a fateful night where four female friends, three mid-aged and one in her late-teen years, en route to a wedding reception. Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and rather than things remaining dormant 'til sunrise, things naturally go haywire. And why wouldn't they? This is dramatic fiction, dammit. So these two sleazy, greezy, trucker dudes pull up behind them, and proceed to terrorize the shit out of these four helpless dames. Well, helpless is how they first seem, until a couple of them take action with mixed results. I won't divulge what exactly happens, in case others feel compelled to read it, but let's just say its an unhealthy mix of monster truck rallying, stabbing-via-rusty-pole, rape, and shattered friendships. Fun for the whole family.

What makes it so effective is how Kieth structures the narrative here. Who you think is one person eventually flips and proves to be somebody else entirely, and the whole thing is told as our main protagonist sits in a therapist's chair, torn between what her guilt wants her to think happened, and the truth that her heart can't fully accept.

The first thing I thought while reading it was, "Damn, Quentin Tarantino could make the shit out of a movie adaptation." Strong and eccentric female leads, engaging in extended dialogue before enacting some sweet revenge on trashy scum. Cast some of the typically-fine actresses whom QT is fond of, and you'd have my ass in a seat on opening night, for cot-damn sure. If Tarantino ever reads this, I expect producer credits. (Riiiight, like he'd ever in a million years even know this blog existed, let alone read it. But in the fantasy land I live in internally, it's his laptop's homepage. Nerdy, eh?)

Kieth, who also illustrated this comic, should be commended for his paintbrush chops on display, too. I'm no art major, so I won't get all super-pretentious-technical here, but he attacks his canvas with a bit of playful, non-imposing skethces here. Gives it almost a kids-comic-book feel, but it surprisingly works. This isn't a horror story, so trying to cause nightmares with the imagery would prove counteractive. By using such non-threatening art, he's allowed the reader cling to the underlying story going on within the four gal pals, rather than the frequently-horrific goings-on around them. At least that's the impression the art gave me. I could be way off from what others have interpreted the pics as, but who gives a shit. Opinions are, as they say, like assholes.

So, in all, Four Women was a rather worthy reading experience for yours truly. It didn't necessarily rock my world or cause me to engage in deep meditative thought in its aftermath, but I really appreciate the storytelling and true dedication and focus on character over spectacle. It's the kind of story I one day hope to scribe myself, not to mention a tale I'd love to write a screenplay-on-equal-level down the line.

I'd totally push for casting chicks like Kristen Bell, Rosario Dawson, Mila Kunis, and Olivia Thirlby, though. Maybe one or two of them would even make sense for Four Women's characters in reality, but fuck it. My kind of chick flick has tasty eye candy.....Yeah, I should probably work on such pervy tendencies if I'm ever going to make it credibly in Tinseltown. Note to self, made and banked.

Finally: A Promising Horror Sequel?!?!

Copied and pasted from Arrow In The Head, a horror component of the great moviehouse site, joblo.com:

"A couple months ago I mentioned that Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (the team behind the brilliant Inside) may have been in talks with Bob Weinstein and Dimension about continuing what Mr. Zombie had started [with his Halloween]. Now, thanks to an article in Rue Morgue Magazine, we have further confirmation that this is indeed the case! Here’s a brief snippet of what was said:

'It's a proposition we couldn't refuse,” Maury explained and added that he and Bustillo are well aware of Zombie's re-imagining of Michael Myers and they're out to put their stamp on the character, not copy what came before them. "Therefore, our vision will be done with utmost respect, with a continuity of [Zombie's] work but also a real evolution of the world he set in place.'"

.....

I've been anxiously waiting on the news of what the brilliant duo behind Inside would be doing next. Inside was their first flick, and showed more potential than any film debut I've seen in God-knows-how-long, so seeing whether they can avoid the sophomore jinx or not has been quite intriguing for me. At first, they were attached to a remake of Hellraiser, the sadistic S&M horror jawn that brought good ol' Pinhead to the world. But alas, Hollywood is a bunch of pussies and these two dudes had to leave the project because their vision for it was apparently too raw, too evil, and too much. Meaning, exactly what it needed to be.

So the fact that these two guys are now attached to a second Halloween project is a mixed bag for me. On the negative side, I really wish these talented foreign genre filmmakers would be allowed to make their own original stuff here stateside, rather than being forced to handle tired remake and remake-sequels to get their feet in America's doors, sort of speak. But positively, this does mean that Bustillo and Maury are, in fact, coming to our shores, and I'm really optimistic that this will be good times for US horror hounds such as myself.

As for Rob Zombie's original Halloween spin, it tore my opinion in half like Mike Myers machete slash. The first section of the movie was pretty great, showing the demented and disturbed childhood of Myers, and I thought it all worked like gangbusters up until Myers left the insane asylum and headed back to Haddenfield. From that point on, however, Zombie abandoned all originality and basically did a shot-for-shot H-ween redux, and not terribly well. If he had just stuck to his own beginning vision, it could've been great. Introduce a whole new set of characters around Laurie Strode, and cast a different actress in the Strode role, one who could elicit some sense of compassion from audiences just as Jamie Lee Curtis once did. And try to avoid creating such white-trashy characters that the film reeks of Devils Rejects, which is a film I love but should remain its own entity. Zombie relies on this white-trash asthetic way too much.

So when Maury says he wants to stay true to the world Zombie created, I'm a bit concerned. They should just create their own universe and let the bodies drop in it. But still, though, these dudes have sick eyes and used some amazing camera techniques and frame tactics in Inside. Plus, John Carpenter's almighty OG Halloween has arguably the most iconic soundtrack in all of horror; the score of Inside, while far from iconic, is still bloody phenomenal. Nice meshing here, too.

Their "Halloween 2" could be something special. Time shall tell, my sick friends. Time shall tell.

The Hills Have Douchebags

I fucking hate The Hills. Worst show on TV right now, possibly ever. Hell, in my eyes, it is the worst show in the history of television. Totally staged. Boring as can be. Polluted with the biggest jerkoff characters this side of Big Brother.

My roommate is watching it, and being that our Internet connection is in our living room, I have no choice but to feel its wrath of putridity (think I just made up a word there....that doesn't sound like an actual word, right?) as I type away on my trusty laptop.

Spencer Pratt, or whatever his last name is, could quite possibly be the biggest douchebag to ever grace an idiot box monitor. I'd seriously pay a cool $100 just to kick the shit out of him. He could even try fighting back, it'd make no diff. He'd stand no chance against my pent-up rage against his show that has played a mammoth part in destroying pop culture.

I have so many friends who make it a weekly routine to watch this stupid show. Most times, catching every subsequent repeat. And I thought my obsessive viewing of Family Guy reruns was a bit much. Family Guy is like Rasputin compared to The Hills.

....

Oh dear God....some asinine new 'reality' show called Exiled has just come on after The Hills Have Douchebags. Not as ass-awful, but pretty darn close. Why does MTV suck so royally? I remember the days when MTV had quality programming such as Yo! MTV Raps, Dead at 21, The Head, Beavis & Butthead, Liquid TV, The Grind, and shit hosted by one of my first full-on celebrity crushes, MTV veejay Idalis. What a smokin' hot dame she was. My lord.



Remember her? Oh, how I loved thee....

How about this? MTV used to be the home of such genius moments as what you're about to watch. "Back in the days, when I was young, I'm not a kid anymore, but some days I sit and wish I was a kid again....."

A Proper Movie Opening....

I've seen this movie twice now, both advances screenings. The only reason I say that is because I can't say I'm telling people to run out and see it, for the simple fact that its not out 'til October. But trust: it kicks ass. Guy Ritchie is back in his long-gone pure Snatch zone. It may even be better than Snatch, in all honesty.

It's called Rock N Rolla, and I fucking love(d) it. And it has one of the cooler opening sequences that I've seen in a long time. And thankfully, that sequence has been put online by the dude who created it. Check it, it rocks. And rolls. Forgive the corniness. But this credit sequence really sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Of course, you can't agree 'til you actually see the full damn thing, but take my word for it:




Remember the opening credit sequence for Seven? Damn, that was amazing. Any others come to mind? I'll be racking my brain for some quality ones, that's for sure. But for now, nicely done, Rock N Rolla crew.

Very Upset Right Now

Son of a bitch! I really need to kickstart this Hollywood/movie journalist grind into super-duper high gear, because these film festivals are really where it's at.

In the hopefully-not-too-distant future, your boy will be at every one of these, as some sort of job requirement.....Cannes Film Festival....Sundance Film Festival...Toronto International Film Festival....hell, even Comic-Con.

I just realized that not one, but two of my most-anticipated flicks are screening during early-September's Toronto fest, and this means that I'll be forced to read every excited post-screening review online for months until these two French sick-times get U.S. release.



The first is Martyrs, literally a film I'd kill a kitten at this very moment just to watch in the dark confines of a movie theater. I've written about it before here, and having just skimmed through two new reviews surfacing after other film fests, I'm fucking losing my mind in anticipation. Both reviews are raving, ecstatic, all-praising, etc. This movie is going to rock my shit whenever I do finally see it, and boy can I not wait.





I remember when I first started reading about Inside last year on all of my trusty horror movie websites, and how it was consistently flooring every audience it was shown to....same goes for Spain's [Rec]. It's crazy to me just how geeked I'm getting these days for foreign genre cinema. Something tells me I really need to get my fucking passport. It's not a game anymore.

And next.....

[Vinyan]


The second is Vinyan, a flick by a French filmmaker named Fabrice Du Welz who I'm slowly learning more and more about, and I'm intrigued. It seems to be some weird tribal Lord of the Flies merged with Children of the Corn, and seems to be quite badass. But besides the simple truth that its from almighty horror heaven France, my main reason of excitement is that the score is provided by Francois Eudes, the same wizard behind the fucking brilliant music heard in Inside and High Tension. Just absolutely sick, jarring, pulsating, and invigorating tunes that really elevate the tension in these already-gripping movies.



To everybody who will be attending the Toronto International Film Fest, I have three simple words for you and yours:

Middle. Finger. You

Quarantine Watch -- Clip Comparisons

Round two of my official Quarantine Watch 2008....this one is a bit of an overkill on the part of the chap who made it, but keeping in the spirit of my collecting all things [Rec]/Quarantine, it'll due.

Thing is, this one in particular will really only make sense for those who've seen [Rec], which is a very-very select few. Oh well, still being posted for my records.

Black Friday(s)

Back on the scene, after one hell of a weekend down in Atlantic City. Wow.

Remember last weekend when I wrote about getting so drunk that my Friday night was a total blur? Well, multiply that by about 25 and then pour about four shots of Coffee Petron on the top and you have this past Friday night. Like, literally, I've only been able to loosely piece together upwards of 30% of the night through forced memory-digging and random revelation. "I had my hands all over some good-looking girl's ass all night? Sweet!" "It took me almost two hours to find my hotel room within the Borgata? Terrible!" "None of my friends knew where the fuck I was all night? Crazy!" "These mysterious scratches on my right arm happened last night? Possibly from that girl I was kicking it to the whole night? Jesus!"

At least the second night was good times and I was actually present the entire time, fully conscious and aware.

I must admit, however, how much I'm hating the fact that two Fridays in a row I got so polluted (a new term for "drunk" that I learned this weekend, btw) that I'm devoid of any recollection of events. Fortunately nothing that bad happened either time, such as arrests (although I was close that one time) or worse (waking up next to some hog....I just can't get down like that).

Fuckin' Coffee Petron. We've become mortal enemies now. And thus far, the bottle is kicking my ass all the way to kingdom come.

'Til we meet again.....